Marin County, the Sausalito Marin City School District and the Richardson’s Bay Regional Agency have been selected for nearly $10 million in water quality and wetlands projects.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the grants Wednesday at an event in Oakland. The Marin projects are among two dozen in the Bay Area to receive $52 million in grants.

“Restored wetlands in the San Francisco Bay are our first line of defense against sea-level rise, groundwater rise and localized flooding for the communities that live along the shoreline,” said Martha Guzman, regional administrator for the EPA’s office in San Francisco.

“Many of them live in underserved communities where the impact will be highlighted,” she said.

Marin’s share of the funding includes $9.8 million in three grant packages: one for the county’s stormwater program, a second for the school district’s creek project and a third for the Richardson’s Bay Regional Agency.

The Richardson Bay agency will receive $2.78 million to restore at least 15 acres of eelgrass in the bay and develop protection and management plans. The agency covers parts of the bay in Sausalito, Tiburon, Belvedere and unincorporated southern Marin.

The county’s grant of $4.07 million is for stormwater treatment project designs and permitting in Sausalito, Larkspur, Corte Madera, San Rafael, Novato, Mill Valley and Marin City, said Robert Carson, an administrator for the county stormwater pollution program.

“This federal funding really provides a critical bridge for the local communities toward reduced contributions of trash to the environment,” Carson said.

The projects will include “full trash capture” devices to reduce stormwater pollution, he said. The grant is expected to fund the design and permits for up to 17 stormwater treatment facilities that will capture more than 8,000 gallons of trash annually.

It also establishes a partnership with the California Department of Transportation to provide investments to build the stormwater treatment and trash removal facilities, Carson said.

The Sausalito Marin City School District will receive $3 million to help pay for raising an underground creek to ground level at its campus in Sausalito.

The so-called “daylighting” of Willow Creek will come in conjunction with the construction of a new elementary school on the campus, said Itoco Garcia, the district superintendent.

“We are going to get to daylight 600 linear feet of a creek that has been in a concrete culvert for over 40 years,” Garcia said. “Not only will this provide outdoor learning spaces for our students, allow for project-based learning around flora and fauna, it will also continue to advance the district’s climate justice initiative.”

“I think one of the most critical things we can do is actually teach real climate justice to this generation of children,” he said.

Steve Moore, the leader of Friends of Willow Creek, an advocacy group in Sausalito, said he is pleased the grant came through.

“We look forward to our continued partnership to help the community and school realize this exciting vision of environmental and educational co-benefits,” Moore said.

Garcia thanked district voters who passed a $41.6 million bond measure in 2020. The bulk of the Measure P proceeds will pay for the elementary school construction and cover a required local match for the EPA grant.

“A lot of what we’re doing for the underground storm management is our match to the EPA grant,” Garcia said. “That’s happening inside the construction for the elementary school.”

Construction on the school is expected to start in September with demolition of some of buildings, Garcia said. The creek daylighting work will occur around the perimeter of campus toward the end of the two-year construction phase, he said.

Ana Alvarez, deputy general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District, said the daylighting of Willow Creek is an example of what she called “nature-based solutions” that help restore and maintain wetlands and animal habitats without disturbing them with concrete structures such as levees or culverts.

“If you don’t have the nature-based solutions, we will have to erect levees,” she said. “We would have to create man-built infrastructure.”

The federal grants are coming from the EPA’s San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund and the federal infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law in late 2021.

San Francisco Bay is a designated “estuary of national significance” under the Clean Water Act, officials said Wednesday.